The Fence
by wheeloffire
Summary: In which nothing much happens. Really. The author owns nothing. Rating is for language and suggestiveness, not action.


**THE FENCE**

It was all very unfair, Bo thought grumpily.

So yes, Dagny and Kenzi were coming to visit. And yes, that was cause for joy and celebration. But why did celebration have to involve re-painting this goddamn mile-long picket fence? More to the point why was Lauren making _her_ re-paint this goddamn mile-long picket fence?

OK, so Lauren hadn't _made_ her. Not really. She had just said thoughtfully, about five minutes before she left for the medical centre to _save lives_ (you know, a job that couldn't be put aside to paint a mile of picket fence), "Mmmm … You know, sweetie, the fence really is looking a bit rundown. Perhaps …." and then she'd just looked at Bo assessingly for a few seconds.

Bo wasn't going to volunteer for that job. Was she a mug? NO! She was a perfectly properly functioning succubus, a perfect specimen of her kind, Lauren had once said. She could certainly get someone else to paint the blasted fence. Bo had read Mark Twain in school. Even though it was a Canadian school. And she distinctly remembered that the HERO had got someone to paint the fence for him, and he hadn't even had succubus powers. Well, Bo was a hero too, wasn't she? A heroine, rather. She shouldn't have to do menial tasks.

OK, so she and Lauren washed the dishes and cleaned the house all the time. But they did that _together_ , couple-like. That was actually nice. ….. OK no, not actually _nice_ , but it meant Lauren was nearby and not all the way at work. She could take a peek at her doctor each time she walked past to empty the dustpan and Lauren might give her a kiss a passing …. mmmmm … or Lauren might be bent over concentrating on some hard-to reach corner …. MMMMMMMMM. So the boredom wasn't _unremitting_..… and sometimes when Lauren was convinced that Bo was A Good Succubus, or occasionally when Bo played A Naughty Succubus, they took breaks, even long breaks … oh yes, MMMMMMM all right!

Anyway, Lauren had looked at her in the morning in _that_ way and then flicked her eyes away and said dismissively, "Oh well, it isn't important."

 _HEY!_ Bo had thought. Because that look away had implied that Bo was not in fact a Good Enough Succubus to paint the fence. It wasn't a really awful look. A long time ago in the very early days, Lauren had just once looked at Tamsin like the Valkyrie not only regularly clubbed baby seals to death but _grinned_ while doing so. This was just after Bo had told her Tamsin had straight out accused Bo of murdering someone. Bo hadn't actually seen Tamsin's reaction to that because she had been too preoccupied with wonder and pride that Lauren would be so blatantly protective of her against a fae who could kill the doctor with a thought (not that Tamsin would have dared with Bo around 'cos Bo was a HERO, right?), and plotting ways to make sure that she herself never ever received such a look.

And this was why Bo was good at sucking up to Lauren. It was her life's work actually. Sure she could investigate as many cases as she liked and she was good at it and got paid more than enough to contribute materially to their life, but now she had Lauren to come home to, those cases were really a filler while the doctor was at work. (While the doctor was IN, heh. Though Lauren was, of course, nothing like Lucy and besides was really, _really_ great to have IN, as it were, heh, heh, heh ….. yeah, Bo did dirty laughs in her mind all the time, but surely she could be excused, on account of her being a succubus and a HERO and all.) Bo knew that she actually spent most the time, when she wasn't worrying about staying alive because some stupid fae had some totally unexpected offensive strategy that prevented her from getting her chi-suck on, planning for her next sucking up session to pay off BIG TIME. MMMMMMMMMMMMM.

So Bo was sort of shallow like that. She could admit that. To herself. Besides it was _Lauren_. Anyone would excuse the urge to suck up … to suck …. mmmmmm ….. whatever …..

But back to that look. She'd been so indignant that Lauren would think she wasn't a … what was the word pastors liked ….. helpmate. And of course sucking up was an ever-present state of mind. So she'd blurted on impulse, "I'll do it!"

And Lauren had looked at her with those big melting eyes that said better than words ever could that she was proud that Bo was her partner because Bo was such a _good_ partner and Bo had felt ten feet tall. AND she had been amply rewarded by an extended goodbye, right at the front door, too ….mmmmmmmmhmmmmm!

Which was why she was here now, painting this fucking fence, to which there was NO end. Because Lauren would know if she palmed the job off on some poor puddingfaced sap by literally palming the poor sap. And then the doctor might make a lot of vegetables for dinner and oatmeal for breakfast. Eargghh.

To be fair, Lauren didn't do things like that to punish her. Lauren wasn't petty. She did it because she sometimes worried about Bo's general health even though Bo could just feed to stay in top form. And Bo didn't really mind THAT much. Lauren always looked so quietly pleased in a deep down sort of way when she ate the vegetables without comment. That was reason number one, sucking up. Again. Reason number two was that now she was in fact eating better and Lauren went for regular runs and Bo went with her and matched her drinking to Lauren's moderation, she needed to feed less. She didn't have hangovers to heal from and maintaining health in human ways meant there was less for feeding to repair. So although she still had to feed, she didn't have to take too much time away from home to do that any more. Which meant more sucking up time. And more sucking time. YES.

Who knew that just painting a fence which wasn't even all that tall could be such hard work? Bo had decked herself out like a proper workman but as she pitifully struggled on like a convict on hard labour, her movements became less smooth as she got bored and tired. She felt like a muppet.

Lauren hadn't known much about muppets. She knew the famous ones like Kermit and Miss Piggy of course but she hadn't watched them on anything like a regular basis when she was young. So Bo had made a big ceremony about sitting her down in front the computer and then calling up the segment with the Star Trekking song.

Bo smiled. Lauren had spit out her coffee and howled for five minutes straight! She'd laughed so hard that her eyes went small and she couldn't see and her stomach muscles hadn't allowed her to stand straight. Then she had burst into spontaneous giggling at sporadic intervals all night long. When Bo had heard her giggling in her sleep, she had felt a huge sense of pride because if Lauren dreamed at all, she usually had science dreams or sinister dreams from her years of constant fear and worry under the thumb of those bastard Ashes.

So snoots to those Ashes. Fuck eighteen generations of their ancestors. That was a Chinese curse. Bo and Lauren had learned it from a chopsocky movie, spoken by one of those brilliant Chinese swordfighting actresses who looked like they could tear your eyes out and think nothing of it and then actually went on to do something like that convincingly in the movie. When they'd seen the subtitles scroll this curse, they'd replayed those few seconds over and over again. It was the only phrase in Chinese they knew and Bo was fine with that. It was a very satisfying thing to say whenever she beat down those same stupid fae who tried to kill her.

So …. yeah, it would be great to get with Kenzi again. Bo missed her a lot still even though they weren't the same people as they'd been in the old days when they spent the nights drinking and eating pizza and falling asleep on the couch after video games. Falling asleep … shoot!

Bo dropped her paintbrush in dismay at her startled realisation. Kenzi and Dagny were staying _here_. Oh no, what had she and Lauren been _thinking_? How were they to do Good Succubus and Naughty Succubus with an impressionable youth in the house? They were staying for weeks! Bo loved them utterly but she knew she was going to _die_ of Lauren deprivation _._ She just knew it. She should have got them all adjoining hotel rooms for the duration so they could be all together and still have privacy.

Arghhhh! With renewed energy to burn from frustration, Bo starting painting again. This was a disaster in the making. Bo could almost taste it. The flavour of desperation. Of pathos. Tragedy. Didn't people deprived of essential things for substantial periods go insane? Lauren would know. But that meant she would have to ask her. Bo cringed inwardly at the thought. Lauren would think she was going to extremes, exaggerating.

When Lauren got to the Point, it was more like an implosion than an explosion. It wasn't anything to do with inhibition as such. Boy, could Lauren be uninhibited with Bo! It was just that Lauren was a private person like it was written into her DNA and that suited Bo just fine. She didn't particularly care for anyone to hear Lauren either. She _loved_ that all the private things about Lauren were just for her. The thought of sharing with _anyone_ those lovely quiet agonized groans and gasps and pants Lauren emitted in the throes of passion made Bo grind her teeth. Those were ALL HERS ONLY … grrrrrrrr.

But Bo herself was definitely loud. When _she_ got to the Point a certain sort of animal instinct took over and made her want the world to know that _she_ had succeeded in getting Lauren to do this to her. That _she_ had won the lottery of all lotteries and nyah nyah nyah to all of them because Lauren had chosen _her_ , so there!

With Lauren not there to ask, she tried to channel the doctor. What would she say? _You'll just have to be quiet, Bo._ Oooooooooo! There were some ideas right there. Oh, but what if she failed? She wanted to protect Lauren's dignity. And Lauren might ….. dear god, Lauren might stop! Bo's heart nearly failed just at the visualization.

She threw down the paint brush. She was done anyway. At last. She took no time to look with pride at the results of her labour. She had hotels to call. Would she need an overdraft? How much was left on her credit card balance?

Bo rushed into the house to look up hotel phone numbers on the computer. And smacked into a startled Lauren.

"You're here!" Bo cried in surprise and delight as they picked themselves up and dusted themselves off.

Lauren grinned at her. "Yes, I have a surprise for you so I left work early."

"Really? What is it? Where is it?" Bo chattered as she shepherded a puzzled looking doctor towards the desktop terminal.

"Umm…. why are we … "

"Hotels," Bo said firmly. "Adjoining rooms."

"But what … why ….."

"Not sharing," Bo said, forgetting that all this would be so much cryptic nonsense to Lauren while the doctor was not yet privy to her train of thought.

"You don't want to tell me what all this is about?" Lauren said, looking a little hurt.

"NO! I mean, YES!"

"You forgot maybe," Lauren said dryly.

But Bo was frantically typing and scrolling and writing down numbers. She would have to log on to her banking site next.

And then Lauren kissed her. Ooooooooo! _How_ did she always smell so good? And yes, there was tongue …. urrrrrrrr ….. and there were fingertips with just the right pressure, firm yet gentle, and going ….. URRRRRRRRRR ….

"Now, sweetie," Lauren said, withdrawing from a dazed Bo. "Will you tell me why you are looking at hotels? You're not thinking of putting Kenzi and Dagny in a hotel, are you? Your closest family?"

"Can't share you," Bo gabbled, her head following Lauren's as if there were taut wire between them.

"Honey, sweetheart," Lauren held Bo's head like it was the greatest treasure on earth. "What are you talking about it?"

Oh oh. She was using her talking-down-lunatics soothing voice. Bo started paying attention.

"Ummm…. I don't want them to hear us … you know … and we can't _not_ … not for weeks and weeks!" Bo felt she was legitimately panic stricken.

Lauren must have made sense of this blather because the bafflement cleared from her face and she stopped feeling Bo's forehead for a temperature. "Oh …OH!" She began to giggle, cuddling Bo's head to her neck lovingly so Bo didn't feel hurt by her apparent frivolity over such an important subject.

"That's a part of my surprise."

"Hmmm …..?" Bo was distracted by soft skin against her nose.

Lauren drew back a little and let go. Bo opened her mouth to protest but then like a featherbrained kitten, her eyes followed the sheet of paper Lauren smoothed out on the table before her.

It was a work order for soundproofing their bedroom tomorrow.

 _FIN_


End file.
